Fix
by Nouveaux-Jours
Summary: Roy Harper knew it needed to end, but this wasn't how he imagined it happening. A short, inconclusive fic featuring junkie!Speedy and a loosely AU setting. Brutal reviews wanted.


_-_

Fix

-

-

-

-

Roy held his head in his hands.

It was not supposed to turn out like this. He was supposed to handle it. He was supposed to be taking care of himself.

_Ollie's face was a stone. "You can't be trusted to take care of yourself."_

He'd done something stupid, he would be the first to admit. He was the one who knew it – no one else had rights to that realization. None could claim the fixing of Roy Harper but Roy Harper himself.

How unfair, how perfectly, utterly _typical _that Ollie discovered it then – now – just as he was on the brink of change. Just as he resolved to quit, to throw it away, to brave the withdrawals and the cravings, to cut himself off from the dependency – that, of course, was the day Ollie visited. The day he rolled his sleeve up just a little to far. The day _before _the night when he would get rid of the last of his stash and put his money in the bank. _That _was the day that Ollie stepped – no, barreled – in.

And screwed everything up.

Roy chuckled quietly to himself. If he didn't have the irony of the situation to appreciate, he might just throw himself out of the third-story rehabilitation center window right now.

He knew it would be months before he could stand to look any of his friends in the face again. He knew that every time he did he would see the accusation in their eyes. He could fully anticipate the wariness, the carefulness with which they would observe – the expectation of the next mistake. He knew he couldn't stand that: seeing every time he met a pair of eyes that he lacked their trust, and wondering, again and again, if he even deserved it. When would the first start trusting him again? A day from now – a year? Two? Who would it be? Who would be the last to trust him?

Who would never trust him again?

None of this – the hospital care, the openness, any of it – made it any easier. It was the same basic task before him. He was starting to sweat now – there were strange sensations in his limbs, his mouth was dry and he could feel his knees weakening beneath him as he stood at the window. He knew the pain was coming. He could already feel the seeds of it beginning to sprout in his bones, and he knew the vines would rapidly spread. He also knew that they would soon whither and die, and he would be clean. That bit was easy. After that came the patching up.

The fixing was more complicated now. It required more tools, harder work, longer hours. It was more than just repairing his body and becoming strong of will and sound of mind, more than being good enough by himself again. Now, he had to redeem himself in the eyes of all the others.

He thought of Dick. He remembered the first time they'd met – how young, how innocent they were, how _similar _they had been to one another, the most prominent difference Dick's dark hair to Roy's shocking red. They had been instantly friends, and though they lived miles apart and saw only so much of each other, they had always enjoyed each other thoroughly when they met. Roy briefly wondered if it would have been different, had they grown up closer together instead of seeing each other so rarely. Dick's drive, his brash determination, his analytical (albeit single-tracked) mind – all were traits that Roy had shared, even at that first meeting. Maybe Dick had been through hard times, too. Maybe they could have held each other up. Maybe Roy would never have turned to the flimsy crutch of heroin.

But the two had grown differently. Apart. It was only a few days ago that they had seen each other last, and the memory was fresh and vivid in Roy's mind. There were the smiles, the fist-bumps, the quick conversation just like always, but for the first time, he couldn't enjoy it. Always at the end of his thought was the knowledge of his addiction, and he saw it as a betrayal to the dark young man beside him. Dick was so much _stronger _than he was. He knew they were different than they used to be. When had they become so different from one another?

But Roy knew when. He could pinpoint the exact moment. He could still see it, clear as day – the last seconds before he contaminated himself with the golden monster that slithered through his veins like a snake. The needle poised against his skin – the moment between staying himself and giving up – him suspended somewhere in the middle, feet looking for purchase.

And then coming down on sticky ground, on a path Dick would never have chosen. They had diverged, of course, performing small disagreements and timid betrayals against one another, but this was the radical moment. This was the divergence too wide to be merged again, his one irrevocable sin against them and their friendship – and he had committed it, not even sparing a thought for Dick at the time.

For a brief, fitful moment as he steadied himself on the edge of the cot, Roy wished that Dick could have possibly have made the same hard turn he had made. He wished the two of them could share his weakness, and give into it with equal fullness. He wished that Dick were a drug addict.

He quickly shoved the thought away.

It would be harder, he knew, but Roy was the one who had to get stronger, not simply want Dick to sink with him. The betrayal was his. He was the one who changed the way they were, and he was the one who had to change again.

But maybe he could never make them right again.

_Dick leaned across the table where the sat at a small pizza parlor, still chuckling from a particularly funny joke, but his face became serious. "Hey, Speedy," he said, using Roy's old track-star nickname from his pre-teen years. Dick was the only one who still ever called him that – even Ollie, his christener, had stopped using it. "Everything's all right, isn't it? You just seem kind of… I don't know. Off. I can't put my finger on it."_

Would he know by now? If not, he would know soon. Ollie had probably been in contact with Donna – oh, Donna – and Dick would of course be in contact with her.

Donna. She was probably crying. No, maybe not – it might be more likely she was throwing furniture around. But no, she wouldn't do that, either. She would be feeling angry, definitely, and shocked and frustrated and betrayed. She would feel like her emotions were swelling inside of her, bubbling up past her capacity and threatening to burst her. She would go for a run down the dark streets of the city, to mad to be cautious – she would scream profanities at him as though he could hear them – she would be so damn _frustrated_ that a few bitter tears would ooze from her eyes as the cold wind stung her face. She would get it all out, and then go home. Maybe then she would try to make her anger known to him. She might be writing him a "strongly worded letter" even now, pressing the pen so hard into the paper it would leave raised impressions of the marks on the other side.

But maybe, even as she wrote her hard words, she was crying.

Roy sat on the neat, white, hospital-perfect cot and closed his eyes. _Donna._ He would let himself think of her. He imagined the smooth alabaster skin of her arm slung around his neck; he allowed himself to feel her lips, as red and as hard as rubies, against his. He lost himself in memories in the city – he saw her dark ponytail swishing behind her as she climbed higher and higher up the tallest maple in the park, looking back to flash him one of those bright smiles. She was always so _brave, _much braver than he was – and smarter than he was, too. He saw her sitting on the roof of his house with the light of the rising sun all around her face. Prom, junior year, holding her hands with his heart beating like a jackhammer – she'd looked so pretty in that white dress. Lying blissfully tired in her bed and her, all beautiful, lying next to him; wrapping his arms around her bare shoulders and feeling her soft arms folded into his chest. Falling asleep. Kissing her awake the next –

"AGGH!"

He was doubled over, shaking like a madman, feet not even on the floor. He tried to move, and another spasm of pain rolled straight through his core. He was staring at the linoleum, waiting for it to stop trembling as if in fear. He watched in horrified fascination as drop of sweat fell in excruciating slowness from his forehead to the floor, the whole scene swimming between black and a sickly pinkish green.

He waited as the stinging pain receded almost to the dull thrumming that had been building before the first convulsion. He was still a beat longer, than moved to lie down on the bed.

He made it a few inches before it hit him again, at twice the intensity this time. Crying out, he half-pulled, half-fell through the pain, managing to position himself horizontally. He lay there sprawled, his body half sideways and half downward facing, panting. He could see the floor and the stand by the bed and the edge of the window; everything was grey and fuzzy around the edges. Flashes of Donna – those eyes, her hair – Dick, leaning across the table – her running from the car in the rain, eyes streaming, hugging him fiercely –

A nurse appeared at the door in apparent hurry. She was saying something. She looked at him and he blinked. She started asking him a question, but he couldn't tell what it was.

It took him a long minute to realize that she had probably heard him screaming.

She turned him over onto his back – the pain ripped through him again, savagely. He opened his mouth in shock, but there was no sound. He was struck with a sudden vision, a flash of himself as he must have looked from the side in that moment – sweat-covered neck extended, eyes wide, mouth gaping uselessly and trembling. The whole world looked like the screen of a television showing static.

Minutes passed. There was a horrible crunching feeling in his abdomen, and he watched as a sickening greenish fluid spilled over the side of the cot. He didn't remember having rolled over.

He realized that the nurse was no longer in the room. It was dark outside. He struggled to remember watching the woman leave, but found he could not. He wondered if he had, by some miracle, fallen asleep.

Roy rolled onto his back and, finding that it did not pain his spine to do so, stared in relative relaxation at the freckled ceiling. He thought about calling out to someone, but he couldn't think what to call. At any rate, he didn't trust his voice to work, and had a sneaking feeling that if he opened his mouth again more bile would spill out.

He stared in silence until his mind became blessedly blank. He started until the sun rose, and as the first rays of warmth stretched through his still open window onto the cot he finally closed his eyes.

There was a week of irritation and agony waiting for him, but Roy slept more restfully than he had in months. It was a shame, really, that he ever had to wake up.

-

_A/N (Please read) : Yes, it's a piece of utter shit. Begun in an emotional state, it was one of those things I told myself I _had _to finish or else I was a terrible person. I did so very poorly. I know I represented his withdrawal symptoms very unrealistically, which was not my original intention, but that's how it came out and I was too lazy to change it. Please, PLEASE review, and as brutally as possible. It's not completely terrible, really. I would very much like to return to it and salvage it some day, and feedback would be a huge help when I do. Thank you._


End file.
